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Plastic is a waste

Plastic has become an everyday norm, but it's time to rethink our dependency on it.

In the past 100 years humans have produced a lot of plastic. The benefits of plastic are that it's cheap and strong, light and extraordinarily versatile. So it's not surprising we're using mountains of the stuff.

These qualities make plastics one of the largest contributors to our overflowing landfill sites, litter and pollution issues across the nation and making the throw away society we live in possible. The method of producing plastic is also seriously harmful to our planet and is contributing to climate change.

This combination means that plastic is quickly becoming one of our generations biggest threats to the environment, we need to act quickly to change this plastic tide, before it's too late.

Recycling should not be the end goal.

Wales in the third best country in the world for recycling. However, we cannot get complacent on recycling - even being number 1 shouldn't be our main target. We need to tackle plastic waste at its source, starting by reducing our dependancy on it. To make this possible, we're aiming for a:

1 - Ban on single-use plastics

Friends of the Earth Cymru are working towards banning single-use plastics in Wales. We believe more emphasis is needed on manufacturers and producers of plastics to change their ways of working, to make it easier for consumers to make sustainable choices at the point of purchase.

2 - Levy on unnecessary plastics

A small charge on disposable unnecessary plastics – similar to the hugely successful 5p plastic bag levy – could help encourage change in consumer behaviour. Imagine having a 5p charge on a plastic straw, or 20p on a coffee cup, or plastic cutlery, many people would soon start to refuse these items and move to reusable or sustainable alternatives.

3 - Bottle Deposit Return Scheme

Deposit Return Schemes are proven to be effective in other countires such as Germany, Denmark and many more. We will be working with the Welsh Government and other NGO's on making a DRS possible and effective in Wales.